Over the past few days I have been appraised by some concerned individuals
of some recent events taking place in Chicago and elsewhere which are obviously
of singular concern to anyone who has served the Urantia Brotherhood and
Foundation as I have. More particularly I voice my concern as a former
member of the Forum and I take this method of publicly expressing my firm
position on these events and attitudes which they may have engendered in
the minds of various individuals. You may show this communication to anyone
or any group who has any part in these events.

If Dr. William S. Sadler who opened the gates of "The Forum"
to Eunice and me, were alive today his indignation over this entire affair
would be boundless. In January of 1959, he wrote a paper titled SOME
CRITICISMS OF THE Urantia BOOK in which in section 10 on page 13, he
discussed "Some Unusual Activities of the Marginal Consciousness."
These included the numerous activities found under the head "Automatic."
These Automatic activities included writing, talking, hearing, which he
called "Clairaudience", seeing, thinking, remembering, acting,
personalization and combined and associated psychic states. I quote his
statement immediately following the above:

NOTE: The technique of the reception of The Urantia Book in English
in no way parallels or impinges upon any of the above phenomena of the
marginal consciousness."

Part of my research activities at F.S.U. have been in this area of investigation.
After voluminous search I am convinced of the correctness of Doctor Sadlerís
conclusions. So was William James who conducted the most thorough of all
investigations into this phenomenon. It is a product of the subconscious,
often known as the marginal Ė or unconscious areas of the human mind. The
phenomena under consideration in this letter falls apparently in the area
of Clairaudience. This removes it from claims for consideration in any
events related to the Urantia Revelation.

It is not surprising that so-called "messages" are appearing
and in various locations and levels of intelligence. The early days of
the Christian era were rife with this activity. We should expect to see
it repeated now, especially since the last of the "revelators"
has proceeded Mansionward. In fact, the delay in its appearance at least
in public, until now was to be expected, as long as a single revelator
remained to challenge the authenticity of a "message". Now with
the sudden plethora of this kind of activity one is duty-bound to question
the motivations behind it.

I have concluded that a fair test of the so-called messages is to evaluate
them in accordance with the intelligence and enculturization of the one
receiving them. Both of these factors condition the subconscious of the
subject in a manner unknown to it. In all cases that I have reviewed, the
content of the message is always well within the parameters of the two
factors named above. Another key is to ask an otherwise honest subject
to identify the sender. Here the reply is usually vague or identification
is withheld at the request of the alleged sender. In the case of The Urantia
Revelation the sender was always identified; the papers carry the name
of the author unless it was a commission or combined operation.

I must add that while I would regard all messages received by any of
the above techniques as products of the subconscious mind, if, the content
were consistent with the intellectual morality of the recipient and appeared
to solve a problem personal to them, then I do not think they should be
challenged. However, once anyone else is involved I would treat them as
objectively as above.

In this connection, what bothers me a great deal is that we have people
in official and responsible positions who are failing their responsibilities
by accepting the current phenomena without test of question. It is apparent
to me, that in good faith, we have elected people who need training in
the application of the bare essentials of reason. Again, if this involved
only their own personal decisions I would not challenge it. However, the
people I am referring to are the ones who are telephoning around the country
in apparently a systematic manner, telling so-called key people, whose
identity has been decided by the caller, that they should do all sorts
of ridiculous things such as buying guns, laying in supplies, transferring
records to safe places and in general acting as though afflicted with severe
hysteria. In a word, they need diagnosis rather than responsibility. I
would be very fearful of placing my future in the hands of such people.
I would strongly recommend that they be impeached for conduct unbecoming
their offices.

Now, this is the kind of conduct common to esoteric cults and the occult-oriented
groups. If word gets out, where is the dignity of the Urantia Brotherhood
and Foundation? It is lost for at least a generation. It would be better
for us to close shop right now and reopen in about 25 years. If we donít
stop this nonsense immediately, we better join the rest and rent a mountain
top where we can establish a colony to await the end of the world or "the
second coming". This will be the image these people are sponsoring
and once established we may never be able to get rid of it. I cannot criticize
and deplore enough the conduct of people who are fostering this image whether
acting in good faith or not. The same people who are writing with so much
dubious erudition on "advertising" are the very ones whose activities
question whether they can be trusted with anything more intellectually
demanding that using an electric pencil sharpener.

This appraisal seems very sharp, but I donít see how it can be otherwise.
At the moment, I can see no future for these people in the Urantia movement.
I think they should resign immediately. They certainly have shown gross
incompetence and inability to perform in responsible positions. Letís forget
about all this "love" for a moment and take a look at the second
paragraph from the bottom of page 1222 in The Urantia Book. This is the
way we have to react in a real world. We have been overly sentimental in
the conduct of our business for far too long. Now itís a deeply-ingrained
habit, difficult to eliminate.

Very truly yours,

James C. Mills

PS: Another very important point. Experience has taught me that it is
one thing to read the U.B., and another quite different phenomenon
to understand what it says. I have observed over 28 years that we
have many more readers than understanders. In fact, the disproportion is
shocking. People still see the "Book" in the light of what they
want to believe; to support their pre-convictions. This is no way to run
a business.